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tabare-garcia avatar image
tabare-garcia asked

MPPT 100/20 sailboat install. turning on/off while motor is on.

Hello,


I have a sailboat(Albin Vega 27). I just installed my MPPT 100/20 and everything seems to work fine as long as the inboard motor Albin o22 isn't on. The weird thing about it all is that the solar power system is a completely different electrical system not wired together with the electricity for the inboard motor.


After doing some troubleshooting we've reach an estimated guess that the sparkplugs from the motor creates an electrical field as they dont have any resistors. So the theory is that it disrupts the electricity from the MPPT making it turn off. This problem only occurs while the motor is running, NOT while the motor is turned off. And like I stated above, there's no link between these two electrical systems other than the fact that the power station being located above the inboard motor.


My question is as follows: Has anyone else had this problem? And could this in fact be a problem that could be fixed by having resistors on the spark plugs?


If you have any others ideas please do share, please forgive my english, it's not my native language.


Best regards.

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4 Answers
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@Tabare Garcia

You are correct. Basically the mppts are being affected by EMP.

We see the same thing when there is alot of lighning around our area. It overhelms the procesor and it switches off.

The spark plugs are basically (not very technical) hundreds of little lighning strikes. So alot of emp.

You would need to sheild it somehow (faraday cage) or move it. I cannot advise on how to do it. I have never tried to anyway.

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tabare-garcia avatar image tabare-garcia commented ·

The problem is now fixed, it was as we believed that the spark plugs from the inboard engine was disturbing the rest of the electricity. We changed to new spark plug caps(isolated) with 5 ohm and now everything works just fine.


Best regards.

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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ tabare-garcia commented ·

@Tabare Garcia

Awesome. Thanks for the feedback.

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tabare-garcia avatar image tabare-garcia commented ·
Thank you for the answer Alexandra,


I'm currently purchasing some stuff to contain the sparks and see if it works better. I'll type later to say how it went.


Best regards.


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tabare-garcia avatar image
tabare-garcia answered ·

The problem is now fixed, it was as we believed that the spark plugs from the inboard engine was disturbing the rest of the electricity. We changed to new spark plug caps(isolated) with 5 ohm and now everything works just fine.


Best regards.

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

Resistors in plugs or their caps will reduce the interference. Whether it's enough is down to experiment. If you can move the MPPT further away, that may help.

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Trevor Bird avatar image
Trevor Bird answered ·

@Tabare Garcia …. What makes you say the MPPT controller does not work when engine is running? What leads you to this conclusion? If your engine is running, the engine alternator is charging the batteries and if the alternator voltage is higher than the setting of the MPPT the solar derived current will reduce. I am just trying to establish why you say the MPPT controller does not work so a logical reason can be established.



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tabare-garcia avatar image tabare-garcia commented ·
You haven't read what I wrote.
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